Diversity and inclusion requires our continuous commitment.
It's a challenge across all spectrums of society, and it’s no different here in the data industry. Amplifi are here and willing to contribute to the shift that our company, and the industry, definitely needs... and will continue to try and make a difference from our corner of the data world.
See how we're trying to spearhead change below.
That’s why we put such a huge emphasis on making sure Amplifi is a great place to work. It’s why, through our hiring process, we make sure people are going to fit the culture so they can join the family, have fun and build strong relationships with the people they’re working with.
Our people are our biggest asset, and as we continue to grow, diversity and inclusion will remain top of the agenda for our People & Culture team. To have a diverse team, we know we need our working environment to be inclusive, which means making sure everyone feels welcome, involved, valued, respected, treated fairly, and embedded in our culture.
We know that we have a gender imbalance in our team. We know different ethnic groups are under-represented in our team. We know we have policies in our handbook that need to be evolved to make Amplifi more inclusive.
Recently our Head of People & Culture, Dan Malins, wrote an article on Amplifi’s dedication to improving diversity and inclusion across all variants. In a survey at the time, 100% of the team agreed that everyone at Amplifi is treated fairly, regardless of race, gender, age, ethnic background, sexual orientation, or any other differences… but that doesn’t mean that we’re finished working on diversity and inclusion.
Our People & Culture team are prioritising how we can improve our awareness of diversity and inclusion, some of the immediate actions we're taking are:
Continuing to evolve our hiring process to ensure Amplifi is somewhere people want to work, and are happy while they are with us. We're revamping our benefits and policies to be more inclusive for both existing and new team members, including extended maternity, paternity & adoption leave, part-time working options, 'remote-first' flexible working, or our 'work from anywhere' policy.
Increasing awareness of what we’re doing internally and externally, to keep ourselves accountable and to add to the wider conversation about diversity in the data industry. This includes shouting about our upcoming work with multiple charities and how we are improving as a company internally - for example introducing comprehensive diversity and inclusion training for our whole team.
Establishing an internal Diversity & Inclusion committee to meet quarterly, with members from throughout the business, led by our internal Diversity & Inclusion champion Naomi Cruden, to evaluate how we work and discuss what more we could be doing to contribute to our D&I efforts and make actionable improvements.
We understand ‘women in data’ is a well discussed topic, and there is no quick fix to the challenges we face. However, one thing we want to acknowledge head on, is that Amplifi is made up of a gender split 19% female, 81% male (Feb '22). We know this is not good enough.
Harnham's most recent UK diversity research found that in the last year the percentage of female professionals in Data & Analytics has dropped from 30% to 28%. Female representation in specifically ‘data & technology’ sits at 22%, which saw no increase in 2021.
From these statistics, lots of observations, trying to recruit diverse talent into Amplifi, and speaking to women within the industry, we feel that the gender gap within the data industry is stagnating, and it’s clear that more needs to be done to drill down into the cause of the gender disparity.
To be able to see more women entering the STEM sectors, there needs to be more encouragement at a younger age. We need to be empowering young women to overcome the ‘STEM cliff’ – this is a decrease in STEM engagement that has been statistically observed from girls in middle-school through to young women. It creates a ripple effect, where a few years down the line STEM is overwhelmingly male-dominated.
Young girls need to be supported to feel confident and educated enough, so they know they can pursue a career in the data industry. Education and introducing girls to tech from an early age is the first step we want to be involved in. We are eager to get started on our work with charities to do just this, including The Girls' Network, who support girls from disadvantaged backgrounds with mentors and networks from different sectors, encouraging them into more diverse workplaces.
Our People & Projects Executive, Naomi Cruden, has written an article discussing the challenges that women face in the sector and how Amplifi are trying to overcome them, you can read it below.
To be able to develop diversity and inclusion in Amplifi, we need to have a thorough understanding of how people feel about working within our team. To measure this, in November last year, we ran an anonymous survey within our team... we didn’t hold back. We asked some really probing questions to make sure we got honest answers.
We ran the survey to find out what our people feel about Amplifi as an inclusive place to work. We wanted a baseline so that when we run future surveys, we can see whether we’re improving or have work to do.
Some of the results are below, and while these are positive for the most part, we know we’ve got lots more work to do - diversity and inclusion requires continuous commitment. The results and feedback from the survey have empowered our People & Culture team to continue to look at how we can improve our awareness of diversity and inclusion and have fostered immediate action to ensure that Amplifi is a welcoming and inclusive place for the people who currently work here and anybody who is looking to join. As a company that’s made up entirely of its people, we will continue to focus on diversity and inclusion for the long term.
"Our culture and people are the single most valuable asset of our business and we strive to treat them as such."
Sam Goss
Founder & President (Europe)
At Amplifi we’re always trying to improve our benefits to ensure that our employees' careers are as enjoyable, productive and as flexible as it can be. We are also evolving some of policies to make sure we are able to foster diversity and inclusion for everyone. Some of our recent additions to our handbook have been...
Although we have offices in Leamington Spa and York that our people are welcome to come and work in whenever they like, we have a flexible approach to office life, where our employees can choose where to work, and when, without obligation.
We have recently extended our maternity leave policy to 5 months (previously 4 months) full pay, & introduced policies to include adoption leave and pregnancy loss of any form.
Working part-time, in any position in the company, is possible. We wanted to formalise this policy to entrench the fact that we truly value our people's work and life balance. We know there are things much more important that just your job.
If you've got any questions about Amplifi as an employer, or are interested in applying for any of our vacancies (see them here!), drop us a message and one of our People & Culture team will be in touch!
